I thought about trying to parse the subtext of Jeff Bridges’ rambling Oscar acceptance speech (spoiler alert: he’s channeling The Dude in a seriously uncanny way), but to no one’s surprise, I decided to try a slightly more…quantitative method.

Behold, the 2010 Oscar Acceptance Speech Word Cloud:

(Click for a larger version)

Statistical insights, after the jump:

Last week, Fenzel wrote a thoughtful analysis of the song “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha. In the resulting discussion in the comments, OTI reader “Brimstone” had this to say about how the song furthers Ke$ha’s image as a “skank”:

I don’t listen to much modern pop but I’ve been a rock fan for ages, and male fans ‘glamorizing self-destructive behavior’ goes back as far as the blues, if beyond. The author of this piece is right – she’s doing the rock star persona thing, which ties into the Mick Jagger line. And that’s cool! Guys have been writing songs like this for decades… Nothing wrong with a girl doing it.

Brilliant observation, Brimstone. And to further illustrate your point, I’ve taken the liberty of re-recording a bit of “Tik Tok”…

as a Muddy Waters-esque old school blues song.

→Download Tik Tok (The Blues Version) [MP3, 2.6 MB]

Try listening to it. Thematically, it makes sense (well, except for the pedicure part) and isn’t nearly as weird as the picture above suggests.

More tellingly, the sum total isn’t that far removed from a Muddy Waters tune along the lines of “Hootchie Coochie Man”…

…or B. B. King’s “Let The Good Times Roll”:

Readers: what do you think of this unholy combination? Have you gained a new appreciation for Ke$ha? Or did I only succeed in sending Muddy Waters spinning in his grave? Sound off in the comments!

Update: Love the song? Digg it here.

You’ve probably heard the news by now that hedge fund Pacificor, LLC has purchased the rights to the Terminator franchise from Halcyon’s bankruptcy auction. This transaction has sparked massive speculation on the franchise’s future. Will McG make more sequels? Will T1 and T2 screenwriter Will Wisher’s treatments turn into the next two sequels? Will Pacificor go for a total reboot?

The future not set: there is no fate but what this shady hedge fund makes, right? Well, I wasn’t content with that. As a rabid Terminator fanboy, I needed to know how this turns out, so I took the liberty of using the Overthinking It Time Displacement Field (OTITDF) to travel ten years into the future to see what will become of our beloved franchise.

My report is as follows. Be warned; it ain’t pretty.

2012-2014: The Sequels

Pacificor’s first move was to get a sequel to Terminator: Salvation out the door as quickly as possible. McG, not having anything else better to do, agreed to helm the sequel. Christian Bale, upon hearing that McG had brought on the same Director of Photography from the last movie, refused to participate.

McG, in a bind, recalled Freddie Prinze, Jr’s fine work in Wing Commander and tapped him for the role of John Connor. Nicolas Cage just showed up on set, and nobody had the heart to tell him he wasn’t actually in the movie.

Pacificor, for its part, contributed the title:

Here at Overthinking It, we’ve been talking about a disturbing trend in advertising for several years. We saw several (nine, to be exact) instances of this in last Saturday’s Super Bowl. Here’s an example:

Advertiser: Doritos

Message: “Eating Doritos will get you shocked by a dog.”

Huh? Why is this a good thing? How is this supposed to sell Doritos? Well, we’re not really sure, but we’ve coined a phrase that aptly describes this perplexing phenomenon:

“Bad Things Happen To You When You Use Our Product.”

Let’s explore this trend further with some more examples.

I had no choice. My health insurance wouldn't pay for anyone else.

My doctor recently diagnosed me with Terminator: Salvation induced post-traumatic fanboy stress disorder (TSIPTFSD–if it’s not in the DSM yet, it will be soon). The treatment regimen consists of repeatedly watching Terminator and Terminator 2 until the names “McG” and “Sam Worthington” no longer send me into an apoplectic rage.

So far it’s going OK (the apoplectic rage that resulted from me typing those words only lasted five minutes this time), but one of the unfortunate side effects of this treatment is that I’m starting to nitpick the hell out of these movies, more so than they probably deserve (see also: motto of this site). Take, for instance, the famous ”hasta la vista, baby” scene from Terminator 2 in which Ahnuld shoots the frozen T-1000 and shatters him into a million pieces.

This seems like a poor tactical decision. Sarah Connor and Ahnuld are both injured. John isn’t much good in a fight. Their adversary is frozen pretty damn solid and isn’t going anywhere. Why don’t they run away, fix themselves up, and fight later?

Instead, he shoots the frozen T-1000 and shatters it into pieces. Okay, I know he needed to deliver a catchy one-liner, but look what happens. Moments later, the T-1000 quickly thaws out and reconstitutes itself.

Shouldn’t Ahnuld have known that the T-1000 would thaw out faster when shattered?

Here’s a better idea: why not take the frozen T-1000, pick it up, and just dunk it into the nearest convenient molten steel vat? It’s frozen. It’s not going anywhere. Its’s completely vulnerable.

Inspired by yesterday’s post on the literary significance of Choose Your Own Adventure novels, our own Mark Lee decided to revisit some significant historical adventures:

How about you, Overthinkers? Do you have a love of the classics and a copy of Photoshop? Submit your own Choose Your Overthought Adventure in one of the following ways:

• Upload it to your own image-hosting site (Flickr, Photobucket, your own site) and post the link in the comments; or
• E-mail it to the editors.

Join in the fun! Uncover the mystery! Choose from two possible endings!

Update: in lieu of a Photoshop cover, we will accept a (written) sample page from the book, with some appropriate choices of where to turn to at the end. But be creative!

What is it about this guy that makes him look so goofy?

Love him or hate him, it’s safe to say that Nic Cage is a decidedly uneven actor, or at least that the movies he’s in are all over the map. The same filmography that has critically acclaimed character pieces like Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas also has disposable mindless fare like Ghost Rider and National Treasure II: Book of Gratuitous Sequels.

Critics have been debating the relative merits of Cage for years, but the recent discovery of the “Nic Cage as Everyone” blog, which gleefully toes the line between tribute and mockery, has stirred the fires of Cage-troversy once again.

Words cannot describe how strange this is.

So are Nic Cage movies crap, or what? When we say his movies are all over the place, just how all over the place are they?

Thankfully, we have our friends IMDB, Excel, and Standard Deviation* to answer that question for us. That’s right, it’s time to analyze the Quanta of Cage.

First, our methodology: let’s take the movies of Nicolas Cage (everything that he’s starred in, excluding animated movies and anything released in 2009), analyze those movies’ IMDB ratings, and compare them to other leading men from his era.

It’s not perfect, but it’s what we’ve got. So let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?

*Standard disclaimer applies: I Am Not A Statistician (IANAS). If I made any mistakes, feel free to give me the “Well, actually” in the comments.

Mark Lee hosts with Pete Fenzel and Jordan Stokes to overthink the allegory of the Simpsons anniversary episode, the last twenty years of the show, and why Disco Stu can’t have his own episode.

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Download Episode 80 (MP3)

"Mmm...macroeconomics"

[Special thanks to Stokes for coming up with the concept for this D'OHverthinking It post. - Lee]

It’s often said that the Simpsons are intended to be an iconic representation of typical lower-middle class Americans. The father works a semi-skilled blue collar job, and they own a home and two cars, but they’re always a little short on money, and their financial problems have often been used as major and minor plot points in the series.

But “The Simpsons” is an episodic TV show–that is, plot elements typically don’t carry over into future episodes. Granted, there are some exceptions (the death of Maude Flanders being a notable one), but for the most part, problems that arise in one episode are resolved in that episode, and that’s that.

The same holds true for the Simpsons’ financial problems. Someone in the family (usually Homer, but often Marge) makes an unsound financial decision, pays the consequences of that decision for the duration of the episode, and is finally saved from that situation through implausible but humorous plot devices. Problem solved. Subsequent episodes may mention other specific or general financial difficulties, but never the lasting ramifications of past mistakes or hardships.

Sounds familiar? Like how for the last twenty years, consumers and individuals kept borrowing money to solve problems until the credit stopped flowing?

[Yes, we are technically on hiatus. But here was a breaking story that couldn't wait to be overthought. —Ed.]

Font snobs around the world recoiled in horror upon seeing the font “Papyrus” used in the movie posters for James Cameron’s Avatar.

But that wasn’t the end of the horror for the Font Snobs: James Cameron wasn’t content with using Papyrus in the movie poster; he went as far as to use it as the font for all of the subtitles in the movie!

Now, I sympathize with these Font Snobs. It’s a hokey font. But all I have to say is, James Cameron’s taste in fonts could be worse. Imagine if this were the poster…